No Waynesburg University fall sports are being played in 2020. That hasn’t stopped the men’s and women’s soccer teams from having training sessions. 

The Waynesburg baseball team doesn’t normally play until the spring. However, they are still proceeding with fall workouts like they would every year. The baseball team only got to play in Florida last season during spring break before the President’s Athletic Conference canceled spring sports because of COVID-19 concerns. 

According to Brad Heethuis, the head coach of the men’s soccer team. The team can still workout at John F. Wiley Stadium, but they must split up.

“We have to stay in pods. For us, we have four pods that they guys are in. All four pods are down at the field at the same time,” Heethuis said. We’re not able to scrimmage. It’s a lot of technical work, it’s a lot of competition within the pod.” 

Heethuis claims that they’ve been training for three weeks now and they have one more week to go. Since there are restrictions due to social distancing, Heethuis faces some challenges when trying to coach during practice.

“Trying to figure out which coach is going to be able to give a little bit more attention to one pod or another that night. Trying to differ sessions up so each pod gets the necessary attention,” Heethuis said. 

Flexibility is also key to having efficient workouts.

“Being willing to adjust. We can’t take a guy from a pod and switch them to another pod. They stay in those same pods for the four weeks,” Heethuis said. “Trying to set up drills and exercises that can work with different numbers is a challenge.”

For the baseball team, they have different types of practice sessions during the weeks according to senior pitcher Zach Straub.  

“For the first two days of the week for the fielders, we’ll have a hitting practice,” Straub said. “Friday and Saturday, we’ll do scrimmages and live at-bats so we can get our reps in with that. Then the next week we focus on fielding.” 

The baseball team is being safe by not sharing equipment and wearing masks while in the dugout and avoiding close contact with each other according to Straub.  

“Everyone has their gloves; everyone has their bats. We have the water bottles that get filled for us by the AT [Athletic Trainer] who is constantly cleaning stuff,” Straub said. “It’s minimum contact with everyone at practice.” 

Heethuis has seen tremendous growth and progress from both the men’s and women’s soccer teams. 

“I think it’s been good. Mentally we just want to get out and get back on the field and it’s been very positive,” Heethuis said. “The guys and girls have been good. We’ve seen some connections in just being able to play together. Being in the pods, yes, it’s limited but you also get to train with the same people that maybe you wouldn’t.” 

The soccer team’s first game is in the middle of March in the spring of 2021.